


In-House Networking

by ami_ven



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: mcsheplets, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 09:21:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4871443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ami_ven/pseuds/ami_ven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The entire scientific community vying for your attention, networking to get you to put in a good word for them— I thought that would be something you’d enjoy.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	In-House Networking

**Author's Note:**

> written for LJ community "mcsheplets" prompt #211 "network"

John looked up when the hotel room door opened, but he barely had time to set down his magazine before Rodney flopped onto the bed, face-down.

“Bad day, buddy?” John asked, wryly.

Rodney didn’t move his face from the bedspread, but one of his hands had landed across John’s shins, and he slid his thumb back and forth, absently, just below John’s knee. “No, a bad day would be a total systems malfunction. Or a planet full of Genii. _Today_ was a disaster.”

“Disaster?” repeated John. He leaned down to poke Rodney’s shoulder, but the other man still didn’t move. “It couldn’t have been _that_ bad.”

“It can,” said Rodney. “It was.”

“You should have let me come with you, then.”

“No.” Rodney rolled over, getting to his feet with a groan, and began peeling out of his suit. “You didn’t get back from that military… thing until late, you needed your sleep. And this was only supposed to be a consult.”

John frowned. “It wasn’t?”

“It was,” Rodney allowed. His tie, jacket and dress pants landed in the near vicinity of his suitcase, more from habit than from intent. “In that I consulted on a few scientific dead ends, solved some problems no one else could solve, that sort of thing.”

“Right,” John agreed. “Normal Tuesday stuff for you.”

Down to his boxers, Rodney pulled on a t-shirt and crawled across the bed to collapse again, this time half across John’s lap. “In theory,” he began, face pressed against John’s ribs, “I totally agree with the idea that we release off-world-related discoveries slowly, starting with the scientific information, but most of the scientists reading that stuff are smart— nothing on me, of course, but they’re not complete idiots— and they’re all sensing that something big is coming.”

“Big like the declassification of the Stargate Program,” said John, sliding his hand up under Rodney’s t-shirt.

“They don’t know _what_ ,” Rodney told him. “But the same morons who’ve called me at best an ‘eccentric recluse’ and at worst a ‘washed-up has-been’ know that whatever is coming, I’m involved, and now they’re trying to pretend they haven’t been questioning my sanity for the last couple of decades.” 

“Wait, how is that a disaster?” John asked. “The entire scientific community vying for your attention, networking to get you to put in a good word for them— I thought that would be something you’d enjoy.”

“I thought so, too. But, as it turns out, I don’t actually care what those sycophants think about me. I mean, I still want my Nobel— _history_ had damn well better remember me. But these guys? I just… I didn’t feel half as good solving their unsolvable problems as I did the first time Torren asked me to put the wheels back on his toy car.”

“You…” John began, but he didn’t have the words, so he just hauled Rodney into a kiss, hoping he’d understand.

From Rodney’s goofy grin when they finally broke for air, he understood completely.

THE END


End file.
